“[T]hat we must be reconciled to God, and justified by the remission of our sins, and imputation of righteousness, before any sincere obedience to the law; that we may be enabled for the practice of it. They account, that this doctrine tends to the subversion of a holy practice, and is a great pillar of Antinomianism; and that the only way to establish sincere obedience, is to make it rather a condition to be performed before our actual justification, and reconciliation before God. Therefore some late divines have thought fit to bring the doctrine of former Protestants concerning justification, to their anvil, and to hammer it into another form, that it might be more free of Antinomianism, and effectual to secure a holy practice. But their labor is vain and pernicious, tending to Antinomian profaneness, or painted hypocrisy at best; neither can the true practice of holiness be secure, except the persuasion of our justification, and reconciliation with God, be first obtained without works of the law.”

Walter Marshall, Gospel Mystery of Sanctification (Lafayette: Sovereign Grace Publishers, 2001), 14. (HT: Inwoo Lee)

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